Kitchen under way....

Well, life on this project is proving to be a lot of work and like everything else. The budget is something you have to work really hard to stick to. It is important to understand that things will happen that will cost you more, things that you think you have planned out completely, well you almost always forget to factor in something. With this house we had a budget and to be able to come in close to that you have to be very savvy with your shopping.

We have been working hard on the kitchen, master bath, and putting in all the floors upstairs. We have done all the work ourselves except for the flooring that has been put in the kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and the carpet. We do not have the equipment that is needed for doing carpet, and with the laminate flooring, we decided that it would be a mess if we made all the cuts and they were not correct, then we would have to pay to buy more. If the professionals cut wrong, they would have to pay to fix it. So that is what we budgeted for first. Then the money that was left we budgeted everything else that we wanted to do.

In the kitchen, you will see all the things we have done so far and it is so many of the things are really non expensive things to do if you do them yourself.

In the first picture, it was the kitchen before we began anything in changes. The few cabinets you see in this picture is all there is in the whole kitchen. This kitchen was considered to have had a small eat in area, but it was a very small area, and with the dining room right beside the kitchen, our family would just rather use the dining room and have more storage in the actual kitchen.

 In the next 2 pictures you will notice that we chose some paint colors, I wanted my house to be a different color in every room. I love color. This can be a big expense unless you know how to shop.  My husband works for a paint store, but what we did was purchase the paints that are considered "ready to go" paints or discontinued paints. These paints were originally about $45- $65 per gallon, but we paid $10 per gallon because they were discontinued paints and we had them tented to the colors that I wanted. A lot of people do not know about this, but it is a great way to save in the process. I had to scrape wallpaper off all the walls in this house, every single room except 1. Once all the walls were cleaned, then they were patched where needed, and then sanded and the paint process began. We cut in around the trim, ceiling, and doors before rolling the rest.

 In the 3rd and 4th pictures you can see that we were having to use a table and little cabinet to try and hold some of the kitchen necessities until we could start to build the cabinets and the pantry that we wanted. The orange paint was looking so much better than the 1970's wallpaper did though.

In the next steps we took blue painters tape and placed it on the floor where we wanted our new pantry and cabinets to go. From there we took yet another trip to the Home Depot to get wood and drywall for the pantry. You can see all the cross bars that were put in place on the sides of the pantry, that was so that the shelves had something to be attached to for extra support. We didn't want them just attached to the studs in the wall because over time they would begin to droop forward. This way they can hold a lot more, and they will not go anywhere.

The drywall is up in the following picture, and it was time to tape and putty the joints, then you have to wait 24 hrs.
before sanding and putty again. Don't worry, the ugly light is going away eventually.

Looky, looky...it is a pantry and there are some base cabinets sitting beside it now. This was the way we envisioned our kitchen looking, it was all starting to come together. Notice in these pictures the flooring is different as well, and the ceiling has been scrapped (popcorn ceiling is all gone) To us it just looks so much better, and that is a free thing you can do, except for the paint and a little joint compound. You need a spray bottle full of warm water, you spray the popcorn ceiling in a section, wait a couple of minutes, spray again and take a large scrapper and start scrapping. It will all just start falling off. For easier cleanup, it is wise to spread the plastic though so you can just fold up and throw it out when you are done. It took a little over an hour to scrape the whole kitchen.

 In this picture, take note, the shelves are in place and food in the pantry. YAY!!!  and there are top cabinets on the walls as well. It is coming together slowly, but still finally happening.

 The outlets were put in place right above the base cabinets, they were just moved up from the ones that were down on the lower level before the cabinets were put it. It was an easy fix as he just had to run the wire up from where it was and put the new plate on it. We left the one that was near the floor in the pantry area. You will see later why we did this.

These next pictures you will see a new hole being cut into the ceiling for the new light and we could get rid of the old 1970's light, and patch the hole, then paint over it.

The new light was on clearance for $78, that is a great deal if you have checked on lights lately. There is another option if you have a light that is brass or the silver color and want the bronze then you can buy the special spray paint and spray them that color, or a brushed nickle color and keep the old light, just giving it a new facelift for under $20. We have done this before many times.

Some before and afters

Here are some before and after photos of our home. There will be many more to come.

This is house before from front

This is the after photo with front door painted, some yard work done

The deck was just bare wood, and in good condition, but needed to be stained to seal the wood and preserve it, so that it will last many more years. You need to pressure wash a deck on one weekend, and allow it plenty of time to dry out. Then, the following weekend, you can roll on the stain. You really need to use a roller for this, it goes on fast and smooth. The stain will dry fast, so you want to keep moving once you get started. You also need to stay off of it for a day or so after you are finished.  The following is pictures of the deck before, and through the process of staining the deck.

The stain for this was $60 per gallon at Sherwin Williams, then the cost of a roller cover. We already had the paint tray and roller handle. It took 1 gallon of stain to do this deck.  We are discussing the the thoughts of doing a second coat though which will be a cost of another gallon of stain. Our deck is about 9x12 with one set of steps.

Hello and welcome to our journey Y'all

Hello everyone,

This is my first post to this blog. I want to start by explaining this blog a little and how it has come to exist.

My family and I moved to the Triad area of NC from the Eastern part of NC in 2013. It has been a journey to say the least. My husband had lost his job of 8 years in heavy highway construction. He and I had already made a home that we loved by remodeling almost every single thing in it. We had made the house the way we wanted it, only to end up having to sell it and move away.  After 16 months of him being unemployed and myself a real estate broker, he had to take a job that was about 3 hours away from home.  We were very lucky that we had friends that lived in the area, and he stayed with them during the week and traveled home to see our youngest and myself on weekends. This went on for 3 months, before it was more than our family could handle, and we made the move to the Triad with him. Our 18 year old was living in my friends dining room, myself, my husband, our now 7 year old, and our two dogs were living in their unfinished basement which had no windows, and one side door to exit the property. There we lived from end of September to February 28th. It was a LONG five months for everyone. We are very grateful to our friends for helping us out, but that is a stressful situation, blending families under one roof. We had to wait for our home in our old hometown to sell before we could even think of getting another one.

We searched for months for a home. Some days it seemed as though we would never find something in our financial rage that would work for a family of 6 with dogs. We just didn't want to rent something either, we wanted our own home that we could make the way we wanted it to be. 

To be honest, I was that client that every broker hates to see come in....you know, the one with a list a mile long of must haves, and only the money to afford half the list, but wont give an inch on the list... I am so thankful that our broker couldn't quit on us, hahahahha.

House # 71 was the house. I had our three daughters with me, my husband was working and we had 4 houses to view that day, the last house on the list was the one. We didn't know what to expect as this property was a foreclosure, not much information about it listed, and couldn't get anyone to return calls. In fact, they had it listed as a 1400sf home, well, it was definitely more than 1400sf.  When we walked into the home, and started going though, it had 3 bedrooms already, 2 full baths, a half bath with laundry, it had 2 living areas, one which had the fireplace that could be converted from gas to wood burning, it also had a large enough dining area.  I immediately called my husband and told him I thought we had finally found the home we needed, not only did the house have the basics, but room to make more of what we needed. It has a large lot, plenty of parking (as we had a camper and trailers), and it was county, not city.

This was the start of an emotional roller coaster.  Since it was a foreclosure, it was also a bidding war online for the property. We REALLY wanted this house, but knew we could not go over a certain price and still be able to afford all the work it was going to need.  You will see in the pictures that this house needed much work to be done to it.

The house was very outdated as it was built in 1978, and only a few minor items changed in the early 1990's. It was horrific with some of the things, such as the 1978 carpet that was still existing downstairs and the 1993 carpet upstairs. The counter tops are still from the 70's. And don't get me started on the wallpaper in every single room except the den which is brown panel walls. The wall paper had started falling off the walls in some rooms, the kitchen ceiling had leaked around the skylight at some point and the roof was fixed but the brown stains were left inside. The popcorn ceilings are coming apart and peeling off.  These are just a few of the items that were wrong with the house.

You will see some projects covered on this blog by description of what we have done, and just pictures. Other things I will actually post short videos to explain and show detail of how to do this project.

My husband and I are firm believers, that if you can do it yourself, why on earth pay someone else to do it. We live on a budget as we have 4 kids, 2 in college, one in high school, and one we are homeschooling. Money goes fast so why waste it. That is our moto. Besides, when you do the work yourself it is SOOOOO much more satisfying when you see the finished product and know that you did that.

We, my husband and I have talked about for years how we should have a TV show or a website that shows people how to do the DIY projects on a home for the average homeowner. We are not millionaires  and we do not have the money to put into a $50,000 kitchen remodel, nor do we have $140,000 to add on to a home. We are average, middle class people who have to do things on a budget that is reality.  I told my husband Brian that we needed to document every little thing we do on this house and I will make a blog for it. Then as we took pictures of everything we were doing, and this class I am taking this semester had a final project that had to be done.... You guessed it....this blog is my project, but it will continue even after this semester until the house is complete. We have a maximum budget for everything we will do on this house, including a new building in the back yard of $30,000 or less. This will include a remodel of the kitchen, all three baths, new flooring though out, paint inside and out, new lighting, and the expansion of building three more rooms to the house.

I hope that everyone enjoys our journey through this blog to what we hope is our forever dream home.

                                                                                                Welcome to our home